Indian Railway Catering Tourism Corporation Limited, called as IRCTC needs no introduction, as the whole India is very familiar with it. No doubt that it has been the King of the Ecommerce in India, providing online Railway tickets and newly launched Air tickets, Hotels etc.

If you are a frequent user of IRCTC, you would have seen the advertisments on the homepage of the website. Its shown up in the coloured potion in the photo below.

Advertisment on IRCTC homepage.

I'm sure, you would not have cared about it, as everyone are eager to login and book the tickets as soon as possible.

According to IRCTC Official website, there are 55 Lakh hits per day on their website.

"In addition to over 55 lakh hits per day, we have over 2 lakh individual visitors daily resulting in more than 100000 tickets booked (including I-tickets)and around 8000 I-Tickets are sent to around 200 of India's biggest cities daily in specially crafted envelopes. Other popular services we offer are PNR enquiries and Accommodation queries which are heavily patronized by our customers."

Basically, In Online industry, there advertisments can be either CPM based, CPC based or CPI based

CPM : Cost per Mille (Cost per Thousand Impressions)

CPC : Cost per Click (Cost per Single Click)

CPA : Cost per action

IRCTC has tied up with an online advertising agency called MAD (Mobile And Internet Advertising) which provides all those type of ads. Let's consider the ad type as CPC based.

The Major two components of any online Ads (CPC) based are :

1. CTR : Click Through Rate

Its a term used to measure the number of users who clicked the ads. If the CTR is 3%, it represents that 3 out of 100 visitors, clicked the ad.

2. CPC : Cost per Click

It is generally measured in US Dollars. Its the cost of single click on the ad.

Now, Let's calculate the Approximate monthly revenue of IRCTC generated by the ads on their website.

In India, the CTR varies from 1% to 5% , so let's take the CTR as 3%, This means, 3 out of 100 people click the ads.

The Indian CPC is always low compared to other countries. It may vary between $0.01 to $0.10. Let's consider the CPC as $0.05. This means, IRCTC earns $0.05 per click on the ads.